WKU back into VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Poll, FGCU in for the first time

Welcome back Western Kentucky and welcome in Florida Gulf Coast.

WKU, a fixture in the past, is in this week’s VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Poll presented by the NIVC at No. 24, and FGCU is in at No. 25.

The top five teams — unbeaten BYU (also No. 1 in the AVCA Division I Coaches Poll) — Creighton (No. 9 AVCA), Marquette (No. 18 AVCA), Cal Poly (No 16 AVCA) and UCF (No. 22 AVCA) — stayed the same.

Denver, riding its 22-match winning streak, moved up a spot to No. 6. San Diego is up a spot to No. 7, and Cincinnati is also up a notch to eighth. Northern Iowa dropped three spots to ninth and Colorado State stayed 10th.

The complete VBM poll follows.

In the AVCA top 25, the top four stayed the same, BYU, Stanford, Minnesota and Illinois. Texas moved up a spot to No. 5. The rest of the top 10 shows Nebraska, Penn State, Wisconsin, Creighton and Pittsburgh.

Washington made it back in at No. 25.

The NCAA RPI report shows a top five of Stanford, Illinois, BYU, Minnesota and Texas. USC, ranked No. 13 in the AVCA poll, is No. 6.

The 2018 National Invitational Volleyball Championship marks the second year of the revival of a Division I “NIT” event designed to bring another postseason opportunity into the sport’s calendar.
In 2017, Ole Miss defeated Texas Tech to win the NIVC title. The 2018 NIVC field will feature 32-40 teams. They will be selected after the NCAA Tournament makes announces its 64-team field. The NIVC will award berths to other deserving programs based on multiple factors, including RPI, overall record, strength of schedule and more. Much like the WNIT basketball event, matches are held at the participating schools.
The field will be announced late Sunday evening, November 25, 2018. The first round will start Thursday, November 29, with the championship match on Tuesday, December 11.
Selection — November 25
Round 1 & 2 — November 29-30, December 1-2
Round 3 — December 5-7
Semifinals — December 7-9
Championship — Tuesday, December 11, 7 p.m. Eastern

Others receiving votes and listed on two or more ballots: Miami (OH), 20; Austin Peay, 16; Fresno State, 13; Tulane, 12; Wichita State, 9; Yale, 7; Tulsa, 6; James Madison, 5; Hofstra, 4. 10 teams mentioned on only one ballot for a total of 58 combined points.
Dropped Out: Miami (OH) 22; Austin Peay 23

The pollsters: Kristin Belzung, Stony Brook; Keylor Chan, Samford; Dietre Collins-Parker, San Diego State; Courtney Draper, USF; Steve Florio, Fort Wayne; Ray Gooden, NIU; Greg Goral, Campbell; Kris Grunwald, Connecticut; Ashli Hain, UCI Irvine; Tom Hanna, Akron; Venessa Hackett Jacobs, Southern; Justin Ingram, UIC; Mike Jordan, New Mexico State; Shaun Kupferberg, Howard; Frank Lavrisha, San Francisco; Aaron Mansfield, LMU; Don Metil, Towson; Kent Miller, Saint Louis; Anna Moreno Allison, Bucknell; Kaddie Platt, Houston; Mark Pryor, North Dakota; Dave Rehr, Arkansas State; Jim Smoot, Southeastern Louisiana; Kari Thompson, Southern Illinois-Carbondale; Jennifer Weiss, Harvard.

x

About Triple Crown Sports: Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, Triple Crown Sports has been producing events in youth athletics and the college ranks for more than 35 years. TCS runs both the preseason and postseason WNIT basketball events and produces the men’s and women’s Cancun Challenge tournaments in November, which have been recognized by Sports Illustrated as a top-5 destination tournament for D-I basketball programs.

Triple Crown produces the revived “WNIT” concept in D-I volleyball (the NIVC), which relaunched in 2017, and has operated a similar event in D-I softball (the National Invitational Softball Championships) in 2017 and 2018. TCS youth fast-pitch tournaments (including the 900-team Sparkler/Fireworks event) draw the nation’s finest club programs, and hundreds of college coaches attend this TCS event and others for recruiting purposes.